Mark Rappaport | |
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| Born | January 15, 1942 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Brooklyn College (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, film critic |
| Years active | 1966–present |
| Notable work |
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Mark Rappaport (born January 15, 1942 in New York City, United States) is an American independent/underground film director and film critic, who has been working since the 1960s.
Born and raised in Brighton Beach, New York, Rappaport graduated from Brooklyn College in 1964 with a B.A. in literature. In 2005, he moved to Paris, France, where he resides and works.
Starting in 1966, Rappaport directed a number of short films and six low-budget features, all made independently with low budgets. [1]
Rappaport’s first feature, Casual Relations (1974), was later described in The A.V. Club as “a formidable exercise in the narrative ambiguities that would dominate many of his films to come.” [2] The next several years brought Mozart in Love (1975), Local Color (1977), the Max Ophuls-influenced The Scenic Route (1978), and Imposters (1979). [3] Roger Ebert called the film “a witty and mannered exercise in style and social observation.” [4] Rappaport’s last narrative feature was Chain Letters (1985). [5]
In 1992, Rappaport began the second phase of his career, in which he moved from scripted narrative to the form of the video essay. The first of these was Rock Hudson's Home Movies , a documentary on Rock Hudson's homosexuality as seen through clips from his films. The same form was used for From the Journals of Jean Seberg (1995), in which actress Mary Beth Hurt spoke as Jean Seberg; [6] and The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender (1997), narrated by Dan Butler. Because of this work, critic Matt Zoller Seitz called Rappaport "the father of the modern video essay." [7]
Starting in 2014, Rappaport turned to short video essays on film history, chronicling the careers of actors (Anita Ekberg, Marcel Dalio, Debra Paget, Chris Olsen, Conrad Veidt, Will Geer) and specific directors (Douglas Sirk, Max Ophuls, Sergei Eisenstein, Jacques Tati and Robert Bresson).
In May 2012, Rappaport filed a lawsuit against professor Ray Carney for refusing to return digital masters of his movies which the filmmaker had previously entrusted to Carney to transport to Paris. The suit was later dropped due to rising legal costs, and Rappaport started an online petition demanding that Carney return the masters. [8] [9] [10]
In 1994, Rappaport started contributing to the French film journal Trafic , created by Serge Daney two years earlier. Since then, he has published more than 40 pieces, and several collections, including The Moviegoer Who Knew Too Much (2013) and (F)au(x)tobiographies (2013). [11]
Rappaport has been noted by Roger Ebert, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Ray Carney, J. Hoberman, Dave Kehr, and Stuart Klawans. [12] [13] [14]
Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called him "the best-known film critic in America."
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Filmed and set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate (Bogart) who must choose between his love for a woman (Bergman) and helping her husband (Henreid), a Czechoslovak resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Germans. The screenplay is based on Everybody Comes to Rick's, an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The supporting cast features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson.
Jean-Luc Godard was a Franco-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Éric Rohmer, and Jacques Demy. He was arguably the most influential French filmmaker of the post-war era. According to AllMovie, his work "revolutionized the motion picture form" through its experimentation with narrative, continuity, sound, and camerawork. His most acclaimed films include Breathless (1960), Vivre sa vie (1962), Contempt (1963), Band of Outsiders (1964), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Masculin Féminin (1966), Weekend (1967), and Goodbye to Language (2014).
All That Heaven Allows is a 1955 American drama romance film directed by Douglas Sirk, produced by Ross Hunter, and adapted by Peg Fenwick from a story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee. It stars Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in a tale about the social complications that arise following the development of a romance between a well-to-do widow and a younger man, who owns a tree nursery.
Douglas Sirk was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. However, he also directed comedies, westerns, and war films. Sirk started his career in Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left for Hollywood in 1937 after his Jewish wife was persecuted by the Nazis.
Lawrence Donald Clark is an American film director, photographer, writer and film producer who is best known for his controversial teen film Kids (1995) and his photography book Tulsa (1971). His work focuses primarily on youth who casually engage in illegal drug use, underage sex, and violence, and who are part of a specific subculture, such as surfing, punk rock, or skateboarding.
Vincent Gallo is an American actor, director, writer, producer, musician, and model. He has won several accolades, including a Volpi Cup for Best Actor, and has been nominated for numerous more, including the Palme d'Or, the Golden Lion, and the Bronze Horse.
Breathless is a 1960 French crime drama film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as a wandering criminal named Michel, and Jean Seberg as his American girlfriend Patricia. The film was Godard's first feature-length debut work and represented Belmondo's breakthrough as an actor.
Raymond Carney is an American scholar and critic, primarily known for his work as a film theorist, although he writes extensively on American art and literature as well. He is known for his study of the works of actor and director John Cassavetes. He teaches in the Film and Television department of the Boston University College of Communication at Boston University and has published several books on American art and film.
Gates of Heaven is a 1978 American independent documentary film produced, directed, and edited by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business. It was made when Morris was unknown and did much to launch his career.
Written on the Wind is a 1956 American Southern Gothic melodrama film directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. It follows the dysfunctional family members of a Texas oil dynasty, including the complicated relationships among its alcoholic heir; his wife, a former secretary for the family company; his childhood best friend; and his ruthless, self-destructive sister.
The Sorrow and the Pity is a two-part 1969 documentary film by Marcel Ophuls about the collaboration between the Vichy government and Nazi Germany during World War II. The film uses interviews with a German officer, collaborators, and resistance fighters from Clermont-Ferrand. They comment on the nature of and reasons for collaboration, including antisemitism, Anglophobia, fear of Bolsheviks and Soviet invasion, and the desire for power.
Jean-Claude Lauzon was a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter. Born to a working class family in Montreal, Quebec, Lauzon dropped out of high school and worked various jobs before studying film at the Université du Québec à Montréal. His two feature-length films, Night Zoo (1987) and Léolo (1992), established him as one of the most important Canadian directors of his generation. American film critic Roger Ebert wrote that "Lauzon is so motivated by his resentments and desires that everything he creates is pressed into the cause and filled with passion."
Rock Hudson's Home Movies is a 1992 documentary by Mark Rappaport. It shows clips from Rock Hudson's films that could be interpreted as gay entendres.
Lola Montès is a 1955 historical romance film and the last completed film of German-born director Max Ophüls. Based on the novel La vie extraordinaire de Lola Montès by Cécil Saint-Laurent, the film depicts the life of Irish dancer and courtesan Lola Montez (1821–1861), portrayed by Martine Carol, and tells the story of the most famous of her many notorious affairs, those with Franz Liszt and Ludwig I of Bavaria. A co-production between France and West Germany, the dialogue is mostly in French and German, with a few English-language sequences. The most expensive European film produced up to its time, Lola Montès underperformed at the box office. However, it had an important artistic influence on the French New Wave cinema movement and continues to have many distinguished critical admirers. Heavily re-edited and shortened after its initial release for commercial reasons, it has been twice restored. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray in North America by The Criterion Collection in February 2010.
A pixie cut is a short hairstyle, generally short on the back and sides of the head and slightly longer on the top, with very short bangs. It is a variant of a crop. The name is derived from the mythological pixie.
Ignatiy Igorevich Vishnevetsky is a Russian-American film critic, essayist, and columnist. He has worked as a staff film critic for The A.V. Club and written for Mubi.com and the Chicago Reader.
RogerEbert.com is an American film review website that archives reviews written by film critic Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times and also shares other critics' reviews and essays. The website, underwritten by the Chicago Sun-Times, was launched in 2002. Ebert handpicked writers from around the world to contribute to the website. After Ebert died in 2013, the website was relaunched under Ebert Digital, a partnership founded between Ebert, his wife Chaz, and friend Josh Golden.
The Scenic Route is a 1978 American drama film written and directed by Mark Rappaport and starring Randy Danson, Marilyn Jones and Kevin Wade.
Maximalist film or maximalist cinema is related to the art and philosophy of maximalism, a reaction against minimalism.
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